Declassified JFK documents: What new records reveal about New Orleans’ connection
For more than 60 years, New Orleans has played a prominent role in conspiracy theories that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone.
NEW ORLEANS — A recent executive action by President Trump to declassify the Kennedy assassination files has led to the FBI uncovering 2,400 new records related to the case.
For more than 60 years, New Orleans has played a prominent role in conspiracy theories that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone.
Two local people close to the investigation are hoping the documents will shed new light.
Judge Steven Plotkin worked in Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s office when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Later, as a private attorney, he represented Gordon Novel.
“Novel and the three others, were involved in the burglary of a munitions dump in 1961 about the Bay of Pigs, and Garrison always thought the whole conspiracy was by the CIA, because Kennedy wanted to have a political settlement with Cuba rather (than) a military confrontation,” said retired Judge Steven Plotkin.
Judge Plotkin had to hire personal bodyguards.
“We started receiving telephone calls that if I didn’t get Gordon Novel to testify before the grand jury, there would be consequences for me,” he remembers.
The Warren Commission concluded Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy alone. Years later, a House Select Commission found inaccuracies and omissions in that report. Judge Plotkin believes Oswald did act on his own.
Bethany Bultman knew Clay Shaw, a New Orleans businessman accused and acquitted of the conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. She believes he was targeted for being gay.
“I mean this destroyed him. It was horrible, but I have to say that people in this community, very prominent people, knew that it wasn’t true. And so, he lies in Kentwood Cemetery, and I just hope that he will, his reputation will come to be the lovely man that he truly was,” said Bethany Bultman.
So, do they agree with the release of the files?
“I don’t know if we’re ever going to really know what happened, but I do know this, Clay Shaw was not involved in it,” Bultman emphasized.
“I think it’s the right thing. We will find out once and for all if they were concealing evidence or misinterpreting evidence or actually destroying evidence in these archives,” said Plotkin.
The order gives the director of National Intelligence and Attorney General 15 days to present a plan to the President for the full and complete release of the assassination records.
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